Metallica Rock Out With 85-Year-Old Fan in Tampa

The adage "If it's too loud, you're too old" doesn't apply to 85-year-old Margaret Priebe, a Florida resident who just this weekend embarked with her son to see Metallica's World Magnetic tour stop in Tampa. Priebe's story became Internet lore in the weeks leading up to the show: According to the St. Petersburg Times, Priebe was first introduced to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame metal band nine years ago when she heard a song off their orchestral S&M album on the radio.

Check out our report from World Magnetic's leg launch in Nashville.

While most senior citizens would've quickly fled to talk radio, Priebe fell in love with what she heard. Last year, while battling cancer, Priebe stocked her iPod full of Metallica and Ozzy Osbourne to help her through her recovery. The story of the head-banging octogenarian eventually made its way to Metallica themselves, as the band welcomed Priebe backstage to meet them prior to their Tampa concert.

Metallica onstage and off: three decades of metal mayhem.

Blabbermouth has photos of Priebe's encounter with Metallica backstage, and all four members of the band posed for pictures with their oldest fan. James Hetfield even made it a point to dedicate the song "Nothing Else Matters" to Priebe during the concert. In one of the strangest compliments Lars Ulrich has probably ever heard, Priebe told the drummer that during her restless nights while recovering from cancer, she'd put on her iPod and Metallica helped "put me to sleep," the St. Pete Times writes.

"They were just like what I'd thought they'd be — very nice," Priebe said after meeting the band. "I like Metallica, there's nothing wrong with them. People think I'm weird. But I'm sorry, I like it loud."

Related Stories:
• Metallica Offer Up Single Song Downloads at Live Music Site
• Metallica Scorch Nashville With Metal Anthems, Lemmy Kilmister on "World Magnetic Tour"
• Metallica, Run-DMC, Jeff Beck Join the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame at Wild Induction Ceremony

• 
  MUSIC Exclusive Live Chat With Linkin Park and Incubus
• 
  MOVIES & TV Peter Travers: 'The Avengers' Has it All
• 
  POLITICS Matt Taibbi: Jon Corzine Is the Original Zimmerman
• 
  VIDEOS Exclusive Premiere: Tenacious D's 'Tinnitus'

Song Stories

“Piano Man”

Billy Joel | 1973

Billy Joel’s first hit, “Piano Man,” was – ironically – an autobiographical lament about how his first album wasn’t a hit. When Cold Spring Harbor didn’t take off, Joel briefly became a lounge pianist in Los Angeles, and this song, about that experience, expressed his frustrations and fears at the time: “And they sit at the bar and put bread in my jar/And say, ‘Man, what are you doing here?’” “It was all right,” Joel said later, about the gig. “I got free drinks and union scale, which was the first steady money I’d made in a long time.”

More Song Stories entries »

Twitter